If the tape of your life could be rewound to the exact moment when you made a decision, with every circumstance leading up to that moment the same and all the stars in the universe aligned in the same way, you could have chosen differently. But to me free will is just an illusion. Why do I say that having free will is just an illusion? We are all human beings made up of molecules, we have to obey the laws of physics. Our brain is where we do our "thinking" and that to is made up of molecules. And the neurons and molecules in your brain are the product of both your genes and your environment. Everything that you think, say, or do, must come down to molecules and physics. If we truly had free will we would have to be able to get into our own brains and change the structure of it and the way it works. There is nothing that proves that we can do that. Just like a programmed computer can't reach inside its self and change the program.
But the most important issue is that of moral responsibility. If we can't really choose how we behave, how can we judge people as moral or immoral? Why punish criminals or reward do-gooders? Why hold anyone responsible for their actions if those actions aren't freely chosen? We should recognize that we already make some allowances for this problem by treating criminals differently if we think their crimes resulted from a reduction in their "choice" by factors like mental illness, diminished capacity, or brain tumors that cause aggression. But in truth those people don't differ in responsibility from the "regular" criminal who shoots someone in a drug war; it's just that the physical events behind their actions are less obvious. But we should continue to mete out punishments because those are environmental factors that can influence the brains of not only the criminal himself, but of other people as well. Seeing someone put in jail, or being put in jail yourself, can change you in a way that makes it less likely you'll behave badly in the future. Even without free will then, we can
